Title:
Elastocapillary bending of microfibers around liquid droplets

Abstract: We report on the elastocapillary deformation of flexible microfibers in
contact with liquid droplets. A fiber is observed to bend more as the size of
the contacting droplet is increased. At a critical droplet size, proportional
to the bending elastocapillary length, the fiber is seen to spontaneously wind
around the droplet. To rationalize these observations, we invoke a minimal
model based on elastic beam theory, and find agreement with experimental data.
Further energetic considerations provide a consistent prediction for the
winding criterion.